Western Digital has put into their type of media streaming items using their latest effort, the Western Digital WD TV Live (WDBHG70000NBK). TV Live is made to get both your networked media files and streaming services into new places in your home. In which the WD TV Live Hub may be the bigger brother with 1TB of internal storage and targeted to stay in the house theater, the WD TV Live doesn't have local storage and is made to opt for the bed room, office or any other TV in the home. TV Live isn't just much more compact compared to Live Hub, it features Wi-fi compatability, making setup about as simple as it will get.
The footprint, cost point featuring from the WD TV Live are likely to draw instant evaluations to Roku and Apple TV, who're industry leaders on television streaming boxes without local storage. Each device includes a core group of benefits for that Roku 2 it is a robust group of channels, that might have value, based on you. Apple TV is tightly integrated with iTunes along with other Apple services. For WD, it's a chance to stream content from networked sources, something which Roku has strangely declined within their latest hardware revision and Apple locks lower to some extent.
If this involves content, WD complements the less-is-more approach, ensuring this content they offer is of top quality. It's difficult to disregard the elephant within the room though WD doesn't have an offer with Amazon . com in position. When WD began lower the media streamer line, they elected to choose Blockbuster for movies, for some reason. While WD will not say without a doubt, it's our reckon that this deal precludes them from dealing with Amazon . com on streaming content for many time period.
WD is making strides though, a part of present day announcement from the WD TV Live, includes adding new content from Spotify, an initial for media boxes of the character and Dailymotion. Include that with other quality channels including The planet pandora, Hulu Plus, Netflix, CinemaNow, Blockbuster and WD includes a pretty complete offering from the top-tier movies online services.
Additionally towards the streaming services WD also is able to play both local content and networked content. Although it appears apparent that the media streamer would do this type of factor, they do not all make this happen task, such as the Roku 2 for example. The Television Live consumes photos, video, and music files from nearly any networked device or in your area through the two USB ports around the device.
Western Digital WD TV Live Specs
- 1.2" x 3.9" x 4.9"
- 0.42 lb
- Gigabit Ethernet
- WiFi (802.11n)
- Dual USB 2.0 ports
- HDMI out
- Optical out
- Remote Control
- NTSC Model (WDBHG70000NBK)
- PAL Model (WDBGXT0000NBK)
- One year warranty
Western Digital WD TV Live Setup and Configuration
The WD TV Live is a small and unobtrusive black plastic box that can easily blend in with other connected devices and is small enough to hide away a bit if needed. In the box WD includes a remote, power cable and sigh, RCA cables. Lowest common denominator for sure, but not entirely useful for a majority of people buying this product - you'll have to supply your own HDMI cord.
The leading from the unit houses the WD badging, IR receiver, energy light and USB port for file access. The sunshine is small, but could be switched off in preferences, a pleasant touch.
The back houses the AV out via RCA, a second USB port for more permanent use of an external hard drive for instance, the HDMI port, Ethernet port, optical output and power plug.
Within the WD TV Live is really a Sigma Designs SMP8670AD-CBE3 processor with 512MB of DDR2 memory from four Nanya NT5TU128M8GE-AC chips spread round the system board. This compares with 256MB located on the previous WD TV Live Hub, in addition to a slightly older processor. Expensive storage was partly hidden from view, but we guess that it's most likely exactly the same 2GB NAND nick or greater, because of the same operating-system and featureset.
In comparison to previous WD media streamers, a significant new feature may be the inclusion of Wi-fi compatability. Although home entertainment customers have Ethernet available, or have set up a radio entry way for those their media gear, with WD's intention for that TV Live for use on secondary Televisions throughout the house, including Wi-fi compatability would be a must for simple plug-and-play use. Customers are motivated to make use of either wired or wireless network, and setup is as simple as hitting your house network title and entering inside a passkey if needed.
In Use
Once powered around the TV Live requests fundamentals like language preference and wireless access key it required us just a few minutes to become completely functional. Customers are given a neat and intuitive interface that scrolls the functions across the foot of the screen. Without internal storage among the primary draws to this kind of system is a chance to stream media from a network source. This method is almost painless, using the WD TV rapidly finding available Samba or NFS shares, and compelling for any account information.
To manage the WD TV Live, Western Digital incorporated a complete-size remote. For moving the interface, the remote is extremely responsive and provides solid feedback on button presses. In comparison towards the small remote around the original WD TV the more recent style might be considered cumbersome, however it all comes lower to preference of the individual while using system.
Compatibility and gratifaction
The WD TV Live didn't have trouble playing the content we examined. Including high-bitrate 1080P videos, downloaded movie trailers, and everything we're able to download to think about testing. In comparison towards the Live Hub, the more recent Accept double the amount RAM appears to deal with streaming 1080P video better, although if there's a positive change it's very minute. Using the gigabit network connection it made no difference if movies were performed in your area off a USB hard disk or higher the network when it comes to responsiveness.
The entire listing of supported video formats and codecs shows up below:
File Formats Supported
- Video - AVI (Xvid, AVC, MPEG1/2/4), MPG/MPEG, VOB, MKV (h.264, x.264, AVC, MPEG1/2/4, VC-1), TS/TP/M2T (MPEG1/2/4, AVC, VC-1), MP4/MOV (MPEG4, h.264), M2TS, WMV9
- Photo - JPEG, GIF, TIF/TIFF, BMP, PNG
- Audio - MP3, WAV/PCM/LPCM, WMA, AAC, FLAC, MKA, AIF/AIFF, OGG, Dolby Digital, DTS
- Playlist - PLS, M3U, WPL
- Subtitle - SRT, ASS, SSA, SUB, SMI
Energy Consumption
Energy consumption is really a hot subject for a lot of electronic components, especially ones that remain on 24/7. The WD TV Live remains inside a full-energy condition whatsoever occasions, even if inside a "standby" mode which reduces the High-definition multimedia interface signal. Fortunately at idle the machine only draws 7 w. If you're searching to chop lower on energy usage one tip may be hooking up the WD TV Live to some switched energy outlet on the rear of a stereo system receiver which may only energy the system on when being used.
To check peak energy usage we performed a 1080P video off a nearby network source. When the video began to experience our Kill-A-Watt only registered single watt rise in energy usage, amassing 8 w.
Conclusion
The Western Digital WD TV Live diverges in the WD TV Live Hub by getting rid of internal storage and adding integrated Wi-fi compatability and a bit more RAM. The general box dimensions are more compact too, arriving at in regards to a stuffed pork and cheese sandwich in overall mass. Which makes TV Live simple to drop alongside nearly any TV, in the home entertainment towards the living room, bed room or kitchen.
When it comes to competition, WD TV Live is listed to visit facing other disk-less streamers such as the Apple TV and Ruku boxes that are all within the sub $100 market. WD's primary trick though is being able to play near to any extendable from the local or network source, whereas other medication is restricted to subscription streaming services only.
When it comes to content, WD is constantly on the unveil new releases. With this particular product's announcement they have added Spotify, that is attaining a large following like a competitor to The planet pandora and it is interfering with the way in which use and share music. Any other services available are well-made and therefore are the cream from the crop, using the noticeable exception of Amazon . com, that is missing in the box. WD informs us that there are plenty more developing this content front though, which is constantly on the increase the value of the television Do without adding any cost.
Pros
- WiFi included
- Content channels are high quality and well designed
- More RAM and newer processor
- No support for Amazon streaming services
- No HDMI cable included
The Western Digital WD TV Live offers tremendous bang for that buck. For entertainment types who would like ultimate versatility or possess a network drive with a lot of media content they would like to blast throughout the house, the television Live may be the should have device.